Tech Tip: Dragon Dictation for iPhone. This Rocks!
If you’ve ever spent too much time composing an email on your iPhone’s tiny keyboard you are going to LOVE this! Dragon Dictation is an amazing, free, dictation app for your iPhone.
Just launch the app, press the record button, and start talking. You can dictate anything from a short note to a longer soliloquy. Once the text is transcribed, you can send it as an email, text message, or copy to the clipboard. Clean up some missed words and add punctuation, and you are set!
Link: Dragon Dictation at App Store
I’ve been playing with this app over the last week, and I’m amazed at the accuracy of the speech-to-text conversion. There are typically a few errors, but they are easy to fix.
Tip: You can add punctuation to your text by saying ‘period’, ‘question mark’, or ‘exclamation mark’ as you talk. It’s a nice touch.
Source: I first ran across Dragon Dictation early last week on the always topical TUAW blog. Although I find myself wondering how long it will be before we have an app that combines this type of speech-to-text transcription with something like Google Translate.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Read the app store reviews before installing – lots of warnings about the app automatically uploading your contacts file to the Dragon Dictation company when you agree to the EULA without an explanation of what they will do with your contacts. Sounds like there may be a privacy issue.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Nice idea. Not available in the Canadian App Store.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:27 am
DP, the makers of Dragon Dictation have posted a description about what your contacts are used for. The short version is that all the speech-to-text transcription is done on their servers, and they use that information to assist spelling of the people’s names in your contact list.
They say they are working on making that feature optional in future releases. It is up to you whether this bothers you enough not to use their software.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:44 am
This looks great, but the EULA makes me uncomfortable, on several counts, and I will be uninstalling.
“Any and all information that you provide will remain confidential and may also be disclosed . . . to your wireless carrier . . . [or] under court order . . . or acquisition of [the company] by another entity.”
December 14th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I tried the app, and I have to say, was incredibly unimpressed with the amount of errors I received. I spent so much time re-saying (before giving up and re-typing) what I was trying to have it transcribe, that it wasted far more time than it saved. I found myself struggling to remember what I’d dictated to be able to fix it properly. It would be a nice feature to have it save your recording in the app, and then be able to play it back like Google Voice’s online voicemail dictation.
The curse word censorship is also kind of ridiculous, but i can understand that they probably had to put that in to save themselves a 17+ rating in the app store.
December 14th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Link doesn’t work – I guess it’s a US only thing?
December 14th, 2009 at 10:40 am
I can’t open the link either.
December 14th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Not available in Canada? Ouuch. I was so excited about this!
December 15th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Been playing with Dragon Dictation for about a week now. It’s not 100%, but what dictation software is. I particularly like using it in the car to send text messages, because it removes the temptation to TWD (text while driving). I’m sure I’ll invent lots of other uses for it, but this is a biggie.
As to the privacy issue, I read the EULA, and it said the names are for accuracy only. In any case, it’s just names — no addresses, phone numbers or emails, so I don’t see what the big deal is.
December 15th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I thought the curse work censorship was a neat touch. You don’t need to spell it out to get your point across
December 15th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I loaded dragon, it runs well, but I agree, errors in understanding comments, especially with background noise makes it hard to use.
For those interested, there is a really neat new AP called “lightning Remarks” that allows within 2-3 keystrokes to create or reply to email or texts where there are 1000’s of predefined remarks, based on over 100 categories that are intuitive to find. It allows you to have a typical 2-3 sentence remark in 2-3 keystrokes. This has sped me up 5-10X on keyboard use. So, I may not use Dragon as much as I thought I would.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:02 am
I like this comment. Thanks for having it star in its own post. I get nervous when I see angry righteous mobs hasting to open purses of feathers and warm the tar. So frequently we understand only a little part of the write up and instead we let ire do the reasoning for us.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
hello this is terrible but I can send to the clipboard but were do I find the clipboard?
January 26th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
@Dyana: Buy a copy of PasteBot. It makes a fantastic companion to Dragon Dictation. You’ll be able to save multiple clipboards, more even better, you can install the server app on your Mac and paste your dictation directly into your Mac apps!
I’m going to write a blog about this workflow. I will post the link here when I have it done.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Google Voice is an absolute lifesaver. I can’t believe the functionality that it offers, like the ability to listen in on voicemail messages. I’ve got a few extra invites. Also I hope that Apple rethinks the GVoice App, hwo could such an awesome program get denied by Apple?
February 10th, 2010 at 3:47 am
I love Google Voice. There SMS feature really got me into it. I can send free text messages to Bangladesh, India, and USA. It saves me good money on my texting program from Verizon Wireless because I can utilize that to text. I think Google always does a very job of giving users what they require and need. I have heard in the future they are incorporating Voice with the Android. Plus they bought a new VoIP company which they will incorporate with the other two to give some quality features. I need to get myself an Androind now haha.
March 14th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Good work!
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